teaching privacy

We have been a little busy, but just a couple of quick tales:

Both kids are excited the weather is getting nicer and very excited about being outside. I let the kids go down the sidewalk in the cul-de-sac as long as I am sitting on the porch. Most of the time AJ will ride his bike and TK just sits by me.... lately though TK wants AJ to push in the stroller. AJ is a great brother and is always willing to give her a ride and is very patient with her (and her sometimes excessive whinning!) Well the got down the sidewalk about 4 houses and I look up and AJ is standing on the sidewalk with his pants down just peeing all over the neighbors grass. I try yelling at him, but had no voice and my knee is sprained so gimping down there was a sight I am sure. Here's the conversation:
Mom: "AJ - when we go to the bathroom that is private, we don't do that on the neighbor's grass or our grass."
AJ (looking at the dogs) "Why not mom... Louie and Ellie pee all the time in everybody's grass."
Mom: "You are not a dog... people go in toilets in the house.... do Not take your pants off when you are outside."
AJ: "Fine"

Mark's response at a later time: "That's my boy!"
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We have had a couple of new neighbors move in a couple of different houses. I would guess that 90% of the neighbors in this little street have 2 or more kids and at least 1 dog. Lots of fun!! I think my kids are really excited to be somewhere with kids their age. They are always starring out the window asking if they can go say "hi". (of course once we get out there neither of them say a word and then it looks like their crazy mom forced them out the door to say "hi".)

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In this house, there is no "play room" so most all the kids' toys are in the basement, along with Christmas decorations and misc. boxes. We do not go down there much, except for the weekends. Well this last Friday I took the kids down there to play so I could finish getting ready and then we were going to be out the door for a great day! AJ jumped off the last step and "SPLASH" followed by "Mom!!!! why is the floor all wet?" The kids thought it was fun to push the water towards the corner to make it go away and they were great sports about throwing some of their stuff away. I was not quite sure how they would handle that. This is my hunch as to what happened..... The previous Sunday Mark started building a closet around the subpump and water pipes so that the kids would not mess them. (This was a decision we made after a couple of cold showers - kids turned off the hot water heater and a couple of very cold days - kids turned the furnance off..... who installs a switch for the furnance at the same level as a 2 year old!!!) I do believe Mark's hammer bumped the plug for the subpump which did not completely knock it out of the outlet, but it was not plugged in!! Then add a week of pretty solid rain and there you go at least an inch or two covering the entire basement. That was loads of fun to climb those stairs a million times with my almost healed knee.... needless to say it was not feeling so well the next day. We are still drying it out.